As reported in the Cotton Gin and Oil Mill Press, Aug. 19, 1972, "New Food for the Protein-Hungry World" by Carol Hoffpauir, cotton-seed is being considered for use in food products, including bakery products. At present, there are two types of cotton-seed of interest, the first being the usual for normal cotton-seed of commerce, and the second being the glandless varieties of cotton-seed. The normal cotton-seed contain glands and gossypol, which is toxic to single stomached animals. The normal cotton-seed, therefore, is not suitable for human consumption without special processing for removal of the toxic gossypol. The glandless cotton-seed, on the other hand, does not contain toxic gossypol, and, therefore, can be used in human food stuffs.
In the treatment of normal cotton-seed, a process widely known as the Liquid Cyclone Process (LCP) can be used. The LCP process separates the cotton-seed into two parts, one being a finely divided high protein flour essentially free of gossypol, and the other containing pigment glands, coarse meat particles imbedded in the glands and some hull particles. The cotton-seed produced by the LCP process has most of the naturally occurring cotton-seed oil removed from it, and acts as an excellent emulsifier in recipes.
Since the LCP cotton-seed flour is fairly low in oil content, its use in bakery products, particularly breads and other yeast raised bakery products, in normally large quantities results in an extremely heavy product because of the absorption of the water and oil added to the recipe. Therefore, to avoid this heaviness attempts have been made to derive yeast raised bakery product recipes using only small quantities of the LCP cotton-seed flour. One of the principal advantages, however, derived from the cotton-seed flour is that it is particularly high in protein, thus, the trade off in the recipe is the level of protein (measured, for example, in grams of protein per ounce of bread product) in comparison to the lightness of the final bread product.
Despite the fact that glandless cotton-seed have been developed, typically the processes which have been employed to produce cotton-seed flour from the glandless variety of cotton-seed result in a flour from which the oil is removed. Thus, even the glandless defatted cotton-seed flour, when used in yeast raised bakery products, results in rather heavy, unpalatable bakery products.
In my patent application, Ser. No. 749,308, filed Dec. 10, 1976, I discussed a method for making yeast raised bakery products utilizing glandless cotton-seed directly. In this process, the glandless cotton-seed was added to the recipe without first having been reduced to flour. However, in order that the cotton-seed, in the final product be soft and, for that matter, an integral part of the final bread products, I found that it was necessary to soak the cotton-seed prior to adding them to the recipe. I found that the soaking of the cotton-seed, especially in the presence of a sour culture, opened the seed sufficiently to enable them to absorb moisture during the baking process so as not to become hard and incongruous in the soft bread texture.